#Finance » Chancellor must change tack or risk the wrath of pensioners Comments Feed [p?c1=2&c2=6035736&cv=2.0&cj=1] Finance RSS Feed dcsimg -- IFRAME: http://platform.twitter.com/widgets/follow_button.html?show_screen_name =false&show_count=true&screen_name=iancowie [cowieblog.jpg] Chancellor must change tack or risk the wrath of pensioners By Ian Cowie Your Money Last updated: November 2nd, 2012 Comment on this Comment on this article Next monthâs Autumn Statement could cause the Government to lose the -- be bad advice for those who are in debt by the fourth week of every month or, for any other reason, cannot afford to lock cash away until they reach retirement age. Millions of graduates might be better off paying down student debts, for example, or saving to buy their first home. The legal principle that compensation must be paid when financial advice, let alone compulsion, causes any individual to be worse off is well-established. A series of scandals including personal pensions sold to people who might have been better off in company schemes, with-profits endowments and payment protection insurance (PPI) have all demonstrated that it is no defence to claim good intentions. -- into pensions last month, when the new scheme was launched, and millions more will be affected as smaller companies and their employees are brought within its scope in the months and years ahead. And nearly half of all pensioners are currently so poor that they are eligible for means-tested benefits. Lest this sound alarmist, there is no need to take my word for it. Pensions expert Dr. Ros Altmann, the director-general of Saga, summed up the problem succinctly this week: âIt is dangerous to auto-enrol people into pensions unless we can be sure they will not lose all their savings in a state pension means test.â In a bid to reduce this risk, as recently as the last Budget the -- (NICs) all their working lives would be excluded forever from the improved basic state pension, many others who never paid any tax or NICs but none the less have residency rights in the UK and retired after the change might benefit. No wonder the Prime Ministerâs office vetoed the plan as soon as its political consequences became clear. No one needs to tell Number 10 that pensioners tend to exercise their right to vote rather more rigorously than younger constituents. So the original proposals would have resulted in an extreme example of a reform where those who miss out make most noise while many winners would remain blithely unaware of what was going on.